Brian Casel, the CEO of Clarityflow (previously ZipMessage) walks Yohann through his research-first approach to addressing churn, doubling down on a well-performing segment of customers, and blasting through a plateau in revenue growth.

User engagement is often taken to be the actionable link to revenue that teams should focus on. Create more engagement, create more revenue, in a nutshell. This is why growth teams design for multiple logins, Weekly Active Users, or Day Seven Retention. In this episode, your hosts discuss why the logic of “more engagement = more revenue” is flawed,…

Scott and Yohann talk about churn — how he approaches it at Churnkey, and how he hopes more companies will approach it in general. As he says, “It’s one of the most underrated sources of information and intelligence.” Creating a cancellation system not only helps customers feel like they’re being heard as you part ways but also gives you precious i…

If you want your automated sales process to convert users as effectively as a human-led sales process, you need to actively manage it. In this episode, your hosts break down the major stages of the Self-Serve customer lifecycle and discuss what it takes to structure each stage so it sets users up for success in the next. 00:00 Introduction01:13 Man…

Many Self-Serve companies operate much like their Sales-Led counterparts, minus a Sales team. In this episode, your hosts discuss how leaning into Self-Serve's differences can turn them into advantages, and how the Self-Serve model opens up opportunities that Sales-Led companies can only dream about.00:00 Introduction 00:27 Self-Serve Companies Sti…

Craig and Yohann chat about how the Self-Serve system at Castos continues to evolve as the company grows into year six with tens of thousands of active customers. Craig talks about optimizing conversions, experimenting with Enterprise Sales, and using user value as a compass to make better decisions. 00:00 Introduction02:11 Growing Volume vs. Optim…

“Aha moments” are a go-to tool in the activation toolkit, but how effective are they? And could they be limiting Self-Serve companies trying to help new users succeed? 00:00 Introduction00:53 Aha Moments Have Social Media Baggage 04:37 There Are No Singular Aha Moments 13:11 The WHEN of Aha Moments 15:42 Aha Moments Don't Activate Users 25:35 Desig…

Tyler and Yohann chat about how Self-Serve has evolved at LACRM since he started it in 2009 (when buying software meant picking up a CD ROM). Tyler talks about why he doesn’t chase revenue goals anymore, what you can and can’t control in a Self-Serve system, and how segments have become a key part of his strategy to grow revenue.00:00 Introduction …

Seth and Yohann talk about how Rapchat will achieve its ambitious revenue goals. Spoiler alert: user segments are a key part of their strategy. The better you can understand the different kinds of users that make up your customer base, the better you can unlock revenue from them. 00:00 Introduction05:12 Rapchat's Path to Monetization09:08 Using Seg…

Your hosts discuss how to manage churn and steer it in a more positive direction using cohort analysis and segmentation. This is a reliable way to identify which customer segments are churning out the most, and where in the customer lifecycle you're losing them.00:00 Introduction02:40 Churn As A By-product (The Standard Approach)04:50 Cohort-Based …

Spencer Fry, the founder and CEO of Podia, shares Podia's approach to Self-Serve, from how they shifted to making more long-term goals once they hit profitability to how they set up their activation and retention systems. 00:00 Introduction03:12 Podia's Shift To Long Term Goals08:33 Using Usage As A Metric13:45 Cutting Costs To Overcome Growth Plat…

If you're looking for impactful Self-Serve tactics that you can put to work immediately, here are a few no-brainers.02:58 Tactic #1: Lay Out The Critical Pathway09:00 Tactic #2: Enhance The Critical Pathway (WIIFM)12:06 Set Expectations On Two Levels15:28 Against Activating Using An "Aha Moment"21:56 Tactic #3: Progress-Oriented Lifecycle Emails26:…

Self-serve customers produce the most scale-friendly cashflow in the SaaS game. But what does it take to scale revenue with self-serve? And how does it compare to scaling with a sales team instead?

Delivering value to your users begins with understanding why people are engaging with your product, and we're here to help you nail it.In this episode, we share our secret sauce for running value-driven research projects by answering questions like which users to talk to, how to ask them for their time, and how to surface nuggets of insight through…

A long-held belief in UX is that designers need to balance the company's needs with the users' needs.In this episode, we reexamine that two-headed monster from a different perspective: thinking in terms of timelines.Your user flows will always be affected by company-timeline considerations, but diving further into your USER's timeline is an easy wa…

Ok, enough with the high-level design philosophy: let's get into how Value Paths can be IMPLEMENTED.The gist: When someone arrives at your offering, it's because they're seeking change in their life. There are patterns there, and you can design for the good ones.Which life-changes do you want your product to be REALLY GOOD AT? How can you DELIVER o…

Your software business is driven by people engaging with your offering. But what CAUSES people to engage?We believe that every time someone uses an app, it's because they're trying to change something about their life OUTSIDE the app.We call the out-of-app changes that drive engagement (and hence drive your revenue) Beneficial Outcomes.Today, we ex…

Performance Valuation is all about uncovering the user outcomes that most strongly correlate with revenue, and finding ways to deliver those outcomes more effectively.Here we provide an introduction to measuring how well you're currently producing user outcomes, and confirming that those user outcomes are valuable for your business, too.…

Path Design is how you get users from where they currently are all the way to the results that they care about.A process is only as good as the outcome it produces, so how do you design one that reliably results in outcomes users care about?

In this episode, your hosts discuss their 3 pillars for healthy, sustainable growth:• Path Design• Performance Valuation• Super-OutcomesAfter introducing each one in detail, we explore how the pillars can be combined to create compound user/revenue growth, without having to resort to engagement hacks.…

In this episode, your hosts talk about how to generate key outcomes for both your users and your software business.Your users are on a path of pursuing value, and they're recruiting your product into it. Your business is pursuing value too, and Value Paths help you align both processes like chocolate and peanut butter.…